Amanda Bynes Is Off Her Meds

The mother of Amanda Bynes says that she has taken Amanda off the medications she was previously taking. As her conservator she is entitled to make all decisions about Amanda's medical needs, but it seems to me that the meds were what was helping Amanda resume a normal life with school and friends there and not hiring taxis to drive her across the country and setting off gasoline fires in the driveways of people. The meds and close supervision have also kept Amanda from being arrested.

Amanda's mother says all of Amanda's problems were because of pot and now that Amanda is off weed that she is fine and doesn't need her medications. This seems like a really slippery slope. Amanda was in a psychiatric unit of a very good hospital and they prescribed her the meds and according to TMZ Amanda was in such bad shape that she mimicked an exorcism and began biting herself. I have never known anyone who used pot to act like that.

Now, what this could also be is that Amanda was taking other drugs in addition to pot which could have been making her act this way. That seems like a stretch though. Amanda does have someone looking out for her best interest who acts as a check against her mom. That person would probably go to court and ask that Amanda begin taking medications again if it was necessary. The last thing Amanda needs right now is a return to the old Amanda lifestyle.

Amanda's people are ignoring her alcohol problem. Pot does not make people become sewer mouths. Amanda may have been doing pot, but those Tweets she did are the outpourings of a toxic alcoholic. She was obviously drinking also. Alcohol makes some people silly, some people weepy, and some nasty. Another myth is that alcohol is a truth serum. Not! Alcohol can make some nasty people silly, silly people nasty, – it has nothing to do with a person's true nature. I'm usually a normal, nice, happy person. Not when I drink, though. I hope Amanda apologizes, or even better, explains and says sorry, and not just thru her mother.

Her mother released that statement herself. I read it last night and thought what the heck? No one gets put in a psych ward for months because of pot! I hope that she remains stable. I'm worried for her. Her mom also stated she was never diagnosed as having any mental illness whatsoever.

I was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and have been off medication for 16+ years. I became asymptomatic after a brain haemorrhage, though. Pot did make things worse, but I wasn't exactly sane sober, either. I hope her mother isn't being blinded by wishful thinking.

Pot can absolutely exacerbate certain EXISTING mental health conditions, but nobody's going to mimic the symptoms of those conditions just because they smoked a joint. I'm starting to wonder if Amanda's not worse off now than ever…

If Mom Bynes did this, it was under the guidance of a Dr, though, right? Right? You don't just take somebody "off" psych meds. I've heard way too many times that people don't realize just how helpful their meds were until they stopped taking them.

Also, if Amanda reacts to pot with such bizarre, self-destructive behaviors, seems like the weed was just acting as a disinhibitor & shaking loose underlying symptoms of mental illness. Hope she's okay.

*sigh* It seems that Mom is part of the overall problem. Accept your child as she is, not as you desperately want her to be. I'm so sick of clueless, unaware parents. Mental illness is a physical problem, just like diabetes or arthritis. Meds can contribute greatly to a productive, stable life. This will not end well, I'm afraid. Sorry for the rant; I just know a lot more about mental illness than I ever wanted to.

Her parents are elderly and I wonder if they just believe Pot is capable of this because they lived during the Anslinger period where they inundated media with scary stories about Pot making people crazy. Reefer Madness, these people seem to literally believe the movie Reefer Madness. Pot will sometimes trigger Schizophrenic people to show symptoms early but only in people who have Schizophrenia. Ugh, I'm so scared for her mental health.

Of course, her mom could be lying to try to salvage Amanda's career. I doubt that scenario because her parents were screaming about Pot during her meltdown. Sad.

Well sadly there are parents who ignore sound medical advice every day and they and the child pay the price for it later. Think Scientologists for instance.

I saw a news program on exactly this topic that sillygurl mentions. That teens that have the gene for one type of schizophrenia, apparently there are 2 types, if they smoke pot, given the high THC levels in today's pot and the fact they have taken out another chemical that kept you mellow, countered the THC, it has set off psychotic episodes in many of these teenagers leading to some suicides and death.

So just stopping smoking pot is not going to change the fact that you are schizophrenic and now the symptoms are presenting, been unleashed as it were. So now you have to deal with them. I can see that a doctor can try to reduce or tweak the meds very slowly and see what happens but cold turkey? Schizophrenics often will refuse to take meds as it is so if you have parents not on board, that is not good. Unless those parents are willing to keep their daughter contained so she doesn't hurt herself or others which I guess if you are rich you can do.

I work with people with mental illnesses (mostly schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, paranoid disorder, but some bipolar as well) and SOOOO many of them have comorbid substance abuse disorders. Then they think that when they are able to stop using the illegal drugs, that they don't need their other medications anymore, so they stop taking them, and then get into a lot of trouble. Then they start using drugs again, get into more trouble, and the treatment starts all over again. Rinse, repeat.

Very very common and not surprising at all that she is stopping her meds, though I'm a little surprised it's her mother that's stopping them. Some families can be in pretty deep denial though.

So this will keep happening until she gets more insight into her disease and accepts she needs to be on medication forever. Hopefully by that point her mental illness has not become treatment-resistant. The problem is that every serious episode of psychosis can set a person's baseline mental status lower and lower until the meds don't actually help that much. Very sad.

Family friends son had his schizophrenia brought on by pot use. He eventually killed himself & his parents fought for custody of his child as the mother was a heavy drug user (definitely pot, don't know if anything else was involved).

It's pretty annoying to see marijuana being used as a scapegoat in this situation. It can absolutely intensify mental illness and can lead to episodes of psychosis, erratic behavior, probably even hallucinations to a degree.

If they said she was smoking meth and that's what caused that all, then I'd believe it. But putting it on weed is unbelievable. I've been a daily smoker for almost a decade. I think Amanda doesn't want to be known as mentally ill because of the stigma surrounding mental health. I don't blame her, your medical conditions should be private and walking around with everyone looking at you like you're crazy is terrible.

But addressing the public and saying no such issues exist, that it was simply caused by smoking weed, is only setting her up for failure. If her mother is unwilling to accept her illness, then she's an unfit conservator. I hope there is someone in Amanda's life who will do what needs to be done to assure long-term care.

Many people stop their medication because they feel better. They stop, often cold-turkey, and the problems come back with a vengeance. I know, as I've stopped anti-depressants in the past after *feeling better*, only to feel worse, have to restart AND try a higher dosage of the same med.

Ugh, this is stupid, stupid, stupid. There's making informed decisions and being an active part of the doctor's plan of care… and then there's the 'I don't need a medical degree; I know better than doctors for what will fix my child' that leads us to anti-vaxxer-levels of stupidity.

If she is on an antipsychotic medication, a gradual dose reduction is standard practice if she is doing well, had a stable environment, and participating in therapy. These medications can cause more harm when used long term.

Yes, I am afraid that she may be eating her own words one day…GOD forbid something happen to her at the hands of her daughter. I understand her willingness as a mother to defend your daughter, but c'mon. Where's Dr. Phil to chime in???

Well as you're not a doctor i think it's safe to say that we don't know enough to judge what is being done.Some meds can help but maybe a good entourage, psychological help, healthy diet can help too. I agree with BaronessOrczy. For having someone schizophrenic in my family I know that the meds made them feel so out of here (and they're not drug user at all) that they stopped and felt much better. Because they could feel themselves again. We make sure they don't have any stress and all that.

Off completely? I can understand a reduction in the anti-psychotics if she is now doing well. But removing completely is unadvisable. My Grandmother was a paranoid schizophrenic and we could definitely tell when she would stop taking her meds.

Either her Mom has too much faith, or has been told by agents that Amanda's lack of name in the news lately is not doing her career any good. You need a little bit of publicity to keep the interest going before she becomes yesterday's news.

I'm sorry Enty , but STFU. When she got in the hospital you got all flustered because you said she was going to be kept on meds to keep paying the hospital and what not. You're just some nobody with no informaiton about this. how do you no think her mom and the doctors know better than you?

I really hope that this is being done under a doctor's supervision. Altering the doses of any type of neurological medication, and psych drugs certainly fall into that category, can cause the most horrible reactions, People who have huge Valium/Xanax habits and just stop have died.

If not under care, she could experience worse psychiatric problems than before. I really hope it's all monitored and Dr approved.

Hopefully this is just a misguided public relations strategy, trying to keep Amanda's medical issues private by saying "the pot made her do it." I sincerely hope this isn't what her mother actually believes.

This is all about Amanda's mother not be able to handle the fact that Amanda is really sick with serious mental illnesses, and yes schitzoaffective disorder and bipolar disease, both really serious and no one who is doing well on meds should be taken off of them because it was all pot smoking. The mother has issues as well and really probably shouldn't have been appointed her medical conservator. I think this woman believes that the diagnosis will hurt her daughters non existent career. She was always a stage mom and Amanda really suffered because of it – she needs support and the truth about what is wrong so she will continue on her meds and do well in life, simply never acting again is the best thing that can happen for Amanda, too bad she has such a shitty mother who can't handle the truth about her adult kid, who is really very ill.

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